"never-never-never-never give up" -- Winston Churchill
Monday, May 21, 2012
quotes
The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover
Misattributed
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
Though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of the statement. Using it in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..." — It has sometimes been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but without definite citation.
You have to learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Variations of this quote have been attributed to a number of people, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Samuel Levenson, and Lao Tzu; there is no solid support for any such attribution.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Peninsula
In Latin, peninsula means "almost island". In some languages it is
called "half island."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsula
called "half island."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsula
Monday, April 23, 2012
The Force
Force (Star Wars)
The Force is a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power in the fictional universe of the Star Wars galaxy created by George Lucas. Mentioned in the first film in the series, it is integral to all subsequent incarnations of Star Wars, including the expanded universe of comic books, novels, and video games. Within the franchise, it is the object of the Jedi and Sith monastic orders.
Lucas has attributed the origins of "The Force" to a 1963 abstract film by Arthur Lipsett, which sampled from many sources.
One of the audio sources Lipsett sampled for 21-87 was a conversation between artificial intelligence pioneer Warren S. McCulloch and Roman Kroitor, a cinematographer who went on to develop IMAX. In the face of McCulloch's arguments that living beings are nothing but highly complex machines, Kroitor insists that there is something more: "Many people feel that in the contemplation of nature and in communication with other living things, they become aware of some kind of force, or something, behind this apparent mask which we see in front of us, and they call it God." When asked if this was the source of "the Force," Lucas confirms that his use of the term in Star Wars was "an echo of that phrase in 21-87." The idea behind it, however, was universal: "Similar phrases have been used extensively by many different people for the last 13,000 years to describe the 'life force,'" he says.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
9/11 As It Happened: First Reports and Second Crash from Multiple Media
I think that this is real interesting. It takes about 90 seconds to
get to the 9-11 coverage. 20 seconds from the end we see the second
plane hit.
get to the 9-11 coverage. 20 seconds from the end we see the second
plane hit.
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHcQ89pxjd4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Never forget.
Bobby Kennedy anounces Martin Luther King's death, Indianapolic, IN 1968
You have probably seen this before, in which case you might not want
to see this again, but I am blown away by the quality of the impromptu
speech.
to see this again, but I am blown away by the quality of the impromptu
speech.
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E3-_z5YP0M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I think that Bobby Kennedy would have gotten my vote because he was
someone who could deal with racial strife.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Wine Glass Music
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqymc8anO0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Photos of the Day 02/15 - The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
I love sweet dogs... I know some people who have very loving dogs ...
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Fwd: Billion
From: larry.r.trout@
Billion 'What is a Billion?
Since coming to America in 1990, I've never been unable to understand this insistence on redefining what a "billion" is, unless it's to make the national debt seem even bigger.
In England, a million is (or at least it was) a thousand squared. A billion is a million squared. A trillion is a million cubed. It's all very logical. The prefix "mono" means "one", "bi" means "two", and "tri" means "three":
one million = 1,000,000 = one million ^ 1
one billion = a million million = a million squared = one million ^ 2
one trillion = a million million million = a million cubed = one million ^ 3
In the USA, the prefix "bi" seems to be used to mean 1.5, and "tri" means 2:
one million = 1,000,000
one billion = one million ^ 1.5
one trillion = one million ^ 2
Can anyone explain the logic in this? A biplane is not an aeroplane with one and a half wings. A tricycle doesn't have two wheels. In fact it has three. And a bicycle has two wheels, not one and a half. This must be the "new math" everyone keeps talking about.
Here's one reply I got:
Oh, you English people are just silly. Since when does "tri" mean
"cubed" and "bi" mean "squared"? They mean "three of" and "two of,"
respectively, of course. By your system, a bicycle would have only one
wheel (1^2), and a tricycle would have only one wheel (1^3). It's your
English system that's all screwed up.
(I'm naturally neglecting an explanation of why a "billion" doesn't mean
"two of a million.")
:-)
So what name do you give to 1,000,000,000, if it's not a billion?
--
Barry E. Brown Internet: bbrown@sna.com
Sacramento Network Access
System Administrator/Technical Support/Engineering
Home page: http://www.sna.com/bbrown/
I know this is in good humour, but here's my semi-serious reply:
What name do you give to 1,000,000? Answer: A million
What name do you give to 7 Answer: Seven
What name do you give to 7,000,000? Answer: Seven million
What name do you give to 10 Answer: Ten
What name do you give to 10,000,000 Answer: Ten million
What name do you give to 100 Answer: A hundred
What name do you give to 100,000,000? Answer: A hundred million
What name do you give to 1,000 Answer: A thousand
What name do you give to 1,000,000,000? Answer: A thousand million
Does that answer your question? 1,000,000,000 is a thousand million.
Finally, what name do you give to 1,000,000,000,000?
Answer: A million million, which is clumsy, hence "billion" as an abbreviation for "million twice".
I still stand by my logic, although I'm told that since I left England, even the BBC has given up its standards. Oh well, that's progress, I suppose.
At least the BBC hasn't compromised yet on the fact that the third millennium begins on 1st January 2001, not on 1st January 2000 like the rest of the uneducated masses think... (Don't make me explain it :-)
Another attentive reader sent me the following excerpt from the Oxford English Dictionary:
I checked my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, and according to their
explanation, the problem was caused by the French. Of course, we should have
suspected this.
Billion [a. F. billion, purposely formed in 16th c. to denote the
second power of a MILLION. (by substituting BI- prefix for the
initial letters), trillion and quadrillion being similarly formed to
denote its 3rd and 4th powers. The name appears not to have been
adopted in England before the end of the 17th c. Subsequently the
application of the word was changed by French arithmeticians,
figures being divided in numeration into groups of threes, instead
of sixes, so that F. billion, trillion now denote not the second and
third powers of a million, but a thousand millions and a thousand
thousand millions. Eng. retains the original and etymological use.]'
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Billion.html
Friday, January 13, 2012
Lion and girl in stare down
I say, don't mess with the lion...
http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/lion-and-girl-in-stare-down-25661
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Extraversion and introversion
The relative importance of nature versus environment in determining the level of extraversion is controversial and the focus of many studies. Twin studies find a genetic component of 39% to 58%. In terms of the environmental component, the shared family environment appears to be far less important than individual environmental factors that are not shared between siblings.
Eysenck proposed that extraversion was caused by variability in cortical arousal. He hypothesized that introverts are characterized by higher levels of activity than extraverts and so are chronically more cortically aroused than extraverts. The fact that extraverts require more external stimulation than introverts has been interpreted as evidence for this hypothesis. Other evidence of the "stimulation" hypothesis is that introverts salivate more than extraverts in response to a drop of lemon juice.
Extraversion has been linked to higher sensitivity of the mesolimbic dopamine system to potentially rewarding stimuli. This in part explains the high levels of positive affect found in extraverts, since they will more intensely feel the excitement of a potential reward. One consequence of this is that extraverts can more easily learn the contingencies for positive reinforcement, since the reward itself is experienced as greater.
One study found that introverts have more blood flow in the frontal lobes of their brain and the anterior or frontal thalamus, which are areas dealing with internal processing, such as planning and problem solving. Extraverts have more blood flow in the anterior cingulate gyrus, temporal lobes, and posterior thalamus, which are involved in sensory and emotional experience. This study and other research indicates that introversion-extraversion is related to individual differences in brain function.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Playboy Interview: Craig Ferguson : Playboy.com
PLAYBOY: There's a weird irony in setting out to kill yourself because of alcohol but forgetting to do it because you drank too much alcohol.
FERGUSON: The paradox of alcoholism is that the very thing that's killing you is the only thing keeping you going. It's like having an allergy to air. It's a complicated and tricky condition, and it gets misdiagnosed and misrepresented in the media all the time.
PLAYBOY: Couldn't you get out there and help set the record straight?
FERGUSON: I am leery of doing that. I won't go on those doctor panel TV shows and talk about alcoholism. I'm quite happy to talk about my story, but I'm not an expert and I'm not foolish enough to think that because I'm on television it's given me some sort of medical degree. It hasn't. I don't know how it is for other people; I only know how it is for me.
PLAYBOY: How would you define your alcoholism?
FERGUSON: [Pauses] If I'm going to drink, I'm going to get drunk. Good and drunk. And if I can't do that, I'm not interested. You know when people are drinking and they say, "Oh I'm starting to feel it. I better stop." No, no, no. Starting to feel it is the start of drinking. That's the point of drinking. That's my perspective. And I would suggest that that perspective is probably unhealthy. It certainly was for me.
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Nancy Grace denies "DWTS"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/27/us-nancygrace-idUSTRE78Q5KN20110927
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Re: Mexico
larry.r.trout wrote:
'Suspected drug traffickers dumped 35 bodies at rush hour beneath a busy overpass in the heart of a major Gulf coast city as gunmen pointed weapons at frightened drivers. Mexican authorities said Wednesday they are examining surveillance video for clues to who committed the crime.
Horrified motorists grabbed cell phones and sent Twitter messages warning others to avoid the area near the biggest shopping mall in Boca del Rio, part of the metropolitan area of Veracruz city.'
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-horror-gunmen-dump-35-bodies-avenue-14570209
Any thoughts?
Yeah. Don't go to Mexico.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
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